by I called my brother last night. It was his 38th birthday. (How did we get so old, so fast?) He was in St Ives with his wife. They’d been to Cambridge which would be heaving on a Saturday in late July. My brother described the experience as hellish. (Cambridge reached a demonic, record-smashing 39 degrees on Thursday.) He mentioned Boris Johnson, and was just about salivating at the prospect of a hard Brexit. In the army, he’ll be fine in such a scenario. Millions, particularly in what remains of Britain’s manufacturing industry, probably won’t be though. My brother and I are very different people. While reading the brilliant Chasing the Scream, I figured that my brother is so vehemently against any relaxation of drug laws (sorry mate, it’s happening) that he wouldn’t get past page ten.
Yesterday I also had a Skype chat with a woman who lives in my apartment block in Wellington. There’s a consensus among owners to sell; many of them just want the sorry saga behind them and are happy to flog it off at almost any price. She doesn’t see things the same way and neither do I. The tacit acceptance of our fate has been mindblowing to me. We’re looking to lose a shit-ton of money through no fault of our own, due a nonsensical policy, and what, we just shrug our shoulders? We need to be getting together with the many hundreds of owners in Wellington and making a fuss. Making shock waves. Hell, it’s Wellington. People should arrange to meet outside the Beehive at a predetermined date and time, carrying placards and chanting something that rhymes, like they do in Romania. I don’t think the lack of young, energetic activist types is helping (at 39, I’m one of the younger owners).
